Rod Serling
Rodman Edward "Rod" Serling (December 25, 1924–June 28, 1975) was an American screenwriter, best known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his science fiction anthology TV series, The Twilight Zone. Biographical Information Early life Serling was born in Syracuse, New York, the second of two sons of Esther (née Cooper) and Samuel Lawrence Serling.Rod Serling Biography (1924-1975) His brother, Robert J. Serling, later became a novelist. Serling was raised in Binghamton, New York, where he later graduated from Binghamton Central High School. He earned his B.A. in 1950 from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Though brought up in a Jewish family, Serling became a Unitarian Universalist. Serling's family had a summer home on Cayuga Lake, in New York's Finger Lakes region, which inspired the name "Cayuga Productions" for use on The Twilight Zone productions. Military service Rod Serling served as a U.S. Army paratrooper and demolition specialist with the 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 11th Airborne Division in the Pacific Theater in World War II from January 1943 to January 1945. He was seriously wounded in the wrist and knee during combat in the province of Leytehttp://www.rodserling.com/FAQ.htm Retrieved: 2009-04-21 in the Philippines and was awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. Serling's military service deeply affected the rest of his life and influenced much of his writing. Due to his wartime experiences, Serling suffered from nightmares and flashbacks. During his service in World War II, he watched as his best friend was crushed to death by a heavy supply crate dropped by a parachute onto the field. Serling was rather short (5'4") and slight. He was a noted boxer during his military days.Rod Serling Timeline at RodSerling.com Early writing career Biographers note that throughout his career, Serling was inspired by legendary radio and television playwright Norman Corwin. Both men would trace their careers through the WLW broadcasting franchise to eventually find homes at CBS, and both would be honored for weaving pivotal social themes into their scripts. In 1951, Serling started to break into television by writing scripts for The Doctor, Fireside Theater, Hallmark Hall of Fame, Lux Video Theater, Kraft Television Theatre, Suspense and Studio One. He also worked for local Cincinnati TV station WKRC (Channel 12), where he wrote a series of live TV shows titled The Storm. The program was a precursor to The Twilight Zone, as was one of the scripts: Requiem for a Heavyweight. In 1955, Kraft Television Theatre presented another of Serling's scripts, the seventy-second to reach the air. To Serling, it was just another script, and he missed the first live airing. The name of the show was Patterns and it changed Rod Serling's life. Patterns dramatized the power struggle between a corporate boss, an old hand running out of ideas and energy, and a bright young executive being groomed to take his place. It was a huge hit, and was re-aired the following week, which was nearly unprecedented at the time. The script established Serling as a rarity: a television playwright. More acclaimed teleplays followed, including The Rack, about a Korean War veteran and the effects of torture, the legendary Requiem for a Heavyweight (from CBS's Playhouse 90 series), and several others, some of which were adapted to the big screen. Requiem, like Patterns, was honored as a milestone in television drama. The installment's producer, Martin Manulis, noted in a PBS biography of Serling that after the live broadcast, CBS chairman William S. Paley called the control room to tell the crew that the show had advanced TV by 10 years. The show's director, Ralph Nelson, wrote and directed a television drama four years later for the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse about writing Requiem for a Heavyweight called The Man in the Funny Suit, in which Serling appeared as himself. Tired of seeing his scripts butchered (removing any political statements, ethnic identities, even the Chrysler Building being removed from a script sponsored by Ford), Serling decided the only way to avoid such artistic interference was to create his own show. Success The Twilight Zone In 1959, CBS aired the first episode of a groundbreaking series, The Twilight Zone. Serling fought hard for creative control, hiring writers he respected (such as Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont) and launched himself into weekly television. He stated in an interview that the science fiction format would not be controversial and would escape censorship unlike the earlier Playhouse 90. In reality the show gave him the opportunity to communicate social messages in a more veiled context. Serling drew on his own experiences for many episodes, with frequent stories about boxing, military life and aircraft pilots, which integrated his firsthand knowledge. The series also incorporated Serling's progressive social views on racial relations and the like, which were somewhat veiled by the science fiction and fantasy elements of the shows. Occasionally, however, Serling could be quite blunt, as in the episode "I Am The Night—Color Me Black", where racism and hatred causes a dark cloud to form in the American South before eventually spreading elsewhere. Serling was also progressive on matters of gender, with many stories featuring quick-thinking, resilient women, although he also wrote stories featuring shrewish, nagging wives. The show lasted five seasons (four using a half-hour format, with one half-season using an hour-long format), winning awards and critical acclaim for Serling and his staff. While having a loyal fan base, the program never had huge ratings and was twice canceled, only to be revived. After five years and 156 episodes, 92 of them written by Serling himself, he wearied of the show. In 1964, he decided to let the third cancellation be final. Serling sold his rights to the series to CBS. His wife later claimed that he did this partly because he believed the studio would never recoup the cost of the show, which frequently went over budget. This proved to be a costly mistake. Night Gallery In 1969, NBC aired a Serling-penned pilot for a new series, Night Gallery. Set in a dimly lit museum, the pilot film featured Serling (as on-camera host) introducing three tales of the macabre, unveiling canvases that would appear in the subsequent story segments (its brief first season rotated as one spoke of a four-series programming wheel titled Four in One), focused more on gothic horror and the occult than did The Twilight Zone. Serling, no longer wanting the burden of an executive position, sidestepped an offer to retain creative control of content—a decision he would come to regret. Although discontented with some of producer Jack Laird's script and creative choices, Serling maintained a stream of creative submissions and ultimately wrote over a third of the series' scripts. By season three however, Serling began to see many of his script contributions rejected. With his complaints ignored, the disgruntled host dismissed the show as "Mannix in a cemetery". Night Gallery lasted until 1973. While the series has its own cult following, it is not as successful as The Twilight Zone and is generally regarded as a pale shadow of Serling's previous series. Fiction Serling wrote a number of short story adaptations of his own Twilight Zone teleplays, which were collected into three volumes of Twilight Zone stories (1960, 1961, 1962), two of Night Gallery stories (1971, 1972), and a collection of three novellas, The Season to be Wary (1968). Two of the novellas in The Season to be Wary were later adapted into episodes of the Night Gallery pilot movie. Serling also released a collection of teleplays, Patterns, in 1957. The collection included the teleplays for "Patterns," "The Rack," "Old MacDonald Had a Curve," and "Requiem For a Heavyweight". A critical essay on Serling's fiction can be found in S. T. Joshi's book The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004). Joshi emphasises Serling's moralism and the streak of misanthropy imbuing his work, and argues that, far from being merely rewritten scripts, many of Serling's stories can stand as genuinely original and meritorious works of prose fiction. Later Years Subsequent to The Twilight Zone, Serling moved onto cinema screens and continued to write for television. In 1964, he scripted Carol for Another Christmas, a television adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It was telecast only once, December 28, 1964, on ABC.Vinciguerra, Thomas. "Marley Is Dead, Killed in a Nuclear War, December 20, 2007. On May 25, 1962, Serling guest starred in the episode "The Celebrity" of the CBS sitcom Ichabod and Me with Robert Sterling and George Chandler. He wrote a number of screenplays with a political focus, including Seven Days in May (1964) about an attempted military coup against the President of the United States; Planet of the Apes (1968); and The Man (1972) about the first African American President. In a noteworthy speech delivered at Moorpark College, Moorpark, California, on December 3, 1968, Serling criticized loyalty oaths, the Vietnam War and social inequity. needed Serling had taped introductions for a limited-run summer comedy series on ABC, Keep on Truckin', which was scheduled to begin its run several weeks after his death; these introductions were subsequently edited out of the broadcast episodes. He also wrote the pilot episode for a short-lived Aaron Spelling series called *The Loner (TV series) *Encounter with the Unknown (1975) (narrator) *Narrated many of The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau specials produced by Alan Landsburg in the 1960s and 1970s. References *DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1593931360 *Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0970331090 Further reading *''Serling: The Rise and Twilight of Television's Last Angry Man'' by Gordon F. Sander (Dutton, 1992), ISBN 978-0525935506 External links *Rod Serling at the Internet Movie Database *Rod Serling at the Internet Broadway Database *The Rod Serling Museum - Binghamton, New York *The Rod Serling Memorial Foundation *Serling entry in Unitarian Universalist Biographical Dictionary *[http://www.wagonwheelfilms.com/DocumentaryFilm.html Rod Serling's Dream Town of Willoughby is Real! See it here.] *Rod Serling Archives at Ithaca College The Rod Serling Archives consists of television scripts, movie screenplays, stage play scripts, films, published works by Serling, unproduced scripts, and secondary materials *Rod Serling Conference at Ithaca College An academic conference focused on studying the creative work of Rod Serling. The next one is scheduled for March 28-29. 2008 *1959 interview by Mike Wallace (journalist) *[http://www.bobrosenbaum.com/transcripts/LifeWithRod_TZMagazine_Apr-87.htm An Interview with Carol Serling: 'Life With Rod' *Rod Serling Archive at the Wisconsin Historical Society Serling's papers consist of roughly 80,000 documents ranging from scripts to personal correspondence, including a folder of angry letters received by Serling. *Rod Serling's Gravestone *Twilight zone and Serling's writings *"Writing for Television" by Rod Serling *Rod Serling's Radio Career Category:Biographies Category:First Series Actors Category:First Series Writers